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Jordan Roberts Business ethics final Affirmative actions plans are used to benefit society, it is a management tool designed to ensure equal employment opportunity. It includes the policies, practices and procedures the perversity implements to address naturalization in its workforce and to ensure that all qualified applicants and employees receive an equal opportunity for recruitment, retention, selection, advancement, training, development and every other condition and privilege of employment. Affirmative action goes beyond non-discrimination. Whereas equal opportunity is passive, affirmative action is positive, instructive action.
The general premise underlying affirmative action is that absent discrimination, over time an employer’s workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial, and national origin/ethnicity profile of the labor pools from which the employer recruits and hires its employees. Affirmative action attempts to compensate for past discriminatory practices by requiring federal contractors to engage in “good faith efforts” to expand outreach and recruitment of women, minorities, persons with disabilities and certain protected veterans, thereby making them aware of employment opportunities and providing access to be able to pursue such opportunities.
I believe that this would be illegal as the university has a right to actively seek to recruit minorities to the school but it cannot discriminate against the non- minority students who would be discriminated by eliminating the remaining spots if the quota of 20 was not fulfilled. Some employers voluntarily adopt affirmative action policies and will make an extra effort to hire a diverse workforce. Once a company adopts an affirmative action policy, they should follow it to avoid lawsuits from potential employees.
There was a case in July 013 which was called Fisher v Texas. In 2008, several high school seniors who had been denied admission at the University Of Texas-Austin filed a lawsuit. The students argued that the university of Texas could not use race as a factor in admission processes if there were other race-neutral options that would have the same results on diversity. A federal district judge found in favor of the University of Texas, stating that the University had complied with the admission requirements laid out in Grunter v. Bollixing.
Additionally, the court cited a University of Texas study from 2002, which found that that ear 79 percent of the university’s individual courses had zero or one African- American students and 30 percent of the courses had zero or one Hispanic students. Thus, the court decided that while race neutral options had been considered, these options were not a viable way for the University of Texas system to maintain and increase diversity. In January 2011, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case and upheld the ruling in favor of the University of Texas.
In June 2011 , the full court decided not to rehear the lawsuit, letting the decision of the three-member panel stand. The U. S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in February 2012. In a 7-1 ruling released June 2013, the Court did not overturn affirmative action generally, but did emphasize that affirmative action programs need to be more strictly reviewed. The Court explained that the program must pass a test of “strict scrutiny,” proving an absence of alternatives that do not include race as a means to diversify the student body.
The case is being sent back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in order to determine if the University of Texas’ affirmative action program passes this test. I believe that this shows hat race cannot be a factor in admission decisions and that the unsure university must change their policy as they are discriminating against non- minority students who do not have the opportunity to fill the remaining free spots out of the 20 which were open.
Unsure University is being very proactive in recruiting non-minority students but I believe they are going too far, I believe the policy they should adopt is, they should aim to hit a number of non-minority students as opposed to a percentage because if they go off a percentage and a white male wants to go to the university but it tips the argental of students into being classified as non-diverse then this is punishing the white student which believe not to be fair.
I think if they have on average 10000 new students enrolling into the school every year they should aim to have at least 1500 minority students within that group this is 15% of the total and is respectable in my eyes, because it is all dependent on the local area there may be a very small Of minorities in this area where the school is and therefore may be unachievable to have over half Of students being able to enroll.
The benefits to my proposal is that they can actively circuit minority students to hit the magic number which in my case is 1500 whilst allowing any non-minority student to apply and this does not worry the school about hitting any quotas and if this white student enrolls the school does not have to worry about tipping the balance of percentages or not.
Universities do not necessarily need to hit a quota because each different university has a different policy, it is federal law that no company or entity is allowed to discriminate on the basis or somebody’s race, this would make my proposed plans achievable because there is no discrimination and the overspent does not force universities to hit a quota.
I believe affirmative action is morally justifiable because it prevents companies and universities from discriminating against minority races as well as disabled people. It forces some owners to employ certain people they would not usually hire, some owners may have a problem with different races and never employ them but if he is forced to then he may change his mind about that certain race.
Embracing affirmative action can provide businesses with a means of making a moral commitment to the ideal of justice or equal treatment for all. The advantage of such a moral stand within the workplace remains indirect. It Can help to draw employees that share a belief in the principle of justice, which helps to foster a more tolerant work environment. It can also reassure employees that come from historically underrepresented groups that the company will give them full consideration for any available promotions.
It provides people with equal opportunities in the workplace and this is very moral and respectable to implement such system to help this problem I believe there is a difference between a system which is designed to repeated a caste system and one that seeks to eradicate it, some people say that affirmative action goes too far the opposite way of discrimination and ultimately discriminates against minority which I believe to be true in some cases, I think some plans go beyond discrimination such as unsure universities proposed plans.
But this is a system which may contradict itself but ultimately seeks to eradicate discrimination so it is beneficial. Justice Stevens was a critic of affirmative action and justice Thomas was an advocate but I agree with justice Stevens believe there IIS better ways to represent the minorities than having to actively seek to recruit them for roles, I think it is about being equal to all and I think affirmative action goes too far the other way and ultimately discriminates against the minority’s.
Question 2 I believe Jill was a victim of gender harassment and hostile work environment harassment which is ‘Generalized sexist statements and behavior that convey insulting or degrading attitudes about women. Examples include insulting remarks, offensive graffiti, obscene jokes or humor about sex or women in general. ‘ I think this because by the definition it is degrading remarks about omen which in this case would be that people were hanging calendars of semi naked women on the walls which if a women finds degrading that they have resorted to being looked at in the workplace then it is degrading.
Jill was a victim of having to listen to obscene jokes which is a part of gender harassment as it states in the question some of the jokes were sexually explicit and was intended to be humorous about women in general. There was a case in 1998 named FARTHER v. CITY OF BOCA ORATOR Beth Ann Farther brought an action against the City and her immediate supervisors,
Bill Terry and David Silverman, for nominal damages and other relief, alleging among other things, that the supervisors had created a “sexually hostile atmosphere” at work by repeatedly subjecting Farther and other female lifeguards to “uninvited and offensive touching,” by making lewd remarks, and by speaking of women in offensive terms Restatement 21 9(1) provides that “a master is subject to liability for the torts of his servants committed while acting in the scope of their employment. Although Title VII cases in the Court of Appeals have typically held, or assumed, that supervisory sexual reassessment falls outside the scope Of employment because it is motivated solely by individual desires and serves no purpose Of the employer, these cases appear to be in tension with others defining the scope of the employment broadly to hold employers vicariously liable for employees’ intentional torts, including sexual assaults, that were not done to serve the employer, but were deemed to be characteristic of its activities or a foreseeable consequence of its business.
Therefore Bighorn may not be able to get into trouble for the sexual harassment but Jim the boss could be in serious legal trouble. Jill followed the correct protocol as she went to speak with her boss about the problem and hoped it could be solved but when Jim refused to do anything about it then this is where legal proceedings must happen. If there was a higher person in the company other than Jim then she should have continued to go up the ladder but it says that Jim is the boss but I assume there may be owners and Jim is not the owner.
Therefore if this is the case Jill should have went to them instead of taking out a lawsuit against Bighorn because if she did not take it to the highest level the owners will claim hey knew nothing about this and Jill is likely to lose as represented in the case above. If Jill was to take it up with the owners they would likely have fired Jim as to save their image.
Big corp. can easily get out of this lawsuit and will most likely win, because the owners Of the company will claim that they never knew about Jim and if they knew about his actions they would have took action, the law states that the group cannot be held responsible for the individuals actions and therefore Bighorn will not be liable. I believe that is Jack removed all the calendars and talked to his team about respecting omen in the workplace he will have calmed Jill down and she would not have pursued the lawsuit.
Jack should also not have encouraged the behavior and could have easily stopped it which Bighorn would have wanted and would save his job because he is most likely going to be fired for sexual harassment. I believe Jack should have to do more than take down the calendars he should promote an equal environment in his workplace and warn any offender who is caught sending crude emails or putting up posters of naked women.
I believed that offensive jokes should not be classed as sexual harassment cause I am a believer that any topic can be joked about as long as it is not personally offensive, humor should be made Of any situation to overcome it. A joke against gender regardless of how little and insignificant it may be I am sure we are all guilty of making, believe it is sexual harassment if that person is continually offended by someone’s jokes and they have asked them to stop but if someone makes a couple of sexist jokes I believe this is fine.
Another part of sexual harassment is that if someone witnesses behavior which they deem offensive and they are not the intended target then they may file a reassessment case, I do not think this should be the case because one person finds things that another person does not find offensive, if a couple of friends are joking and have a good time and say a sexist joke and the other person finds this funny then a witness should not be able to claim they have been sexual harassed.
I am a believer that government should be able to step in when companies are acting unjust because they are not above the law even though they act it sometimes, governments should lay out guidelines of how they expect companies to conduct their business and hold a strong code of ethics in their raciest. If companies do not adhere to these regulations they should be punished severely.
Companies try to get around government regulation as possible because they believe that the government is an inconvenience to their every day practices when in fact they have no reason to believe this. They are a part Of society just like an individual and just because they are a large company they should not be able to get away with acting in certain ways. If companies were left to regulate their conduct then I believe this would be catastrophic we see how companies act in foreign countries and it is only government regulations in this country which prevents such immoral behavior.
Companies such as Nikkei and Apple have factories in third world countries where there is no government regulation and enforcement of moral codes, the companies take advantage of this, they pay their works as little as possible and they treat their workers like animals, they make them work long hours and provide them with horrific working conditions. Imagine how bad they would be in dealing with a sexual harassment case if they cannot even provide their workers with a safe working environment.